Electrodeposition is a convenient way to fabricate thin film solar cells. In particular, electrodeposition is used to deposit the material(s) that form the absorber layer of the solar cell. See, for example, U.S. Patent Application Publication Number 2012/0061247 A1 filed by Ahmed et al. on Sep. 9, 2010 entitled “Method and Chemistry for Selenium Electrodeposition,” U.S. Patent Application Publication Number 2012/0061250 A1 filed by Ahmed et al. on Sep. 9, 2010 entitled “Zinc Thin Films Plating Chemistry and Methods,” and U.S. Patent Application Publication Number 2012/0061790 A1 filed by Ahmed et al. on Sep. 9, 2010 entitled “Structure and Method of Fabricating a CZTS Photovoltaic Device by Electrodeposition,” the contents of each of which are incorporated by reference herein. The composition of the absorber layer can be controlled by the materials that are deposited during the electrodeposition process.
Scaling-up the process to enable fabrication of large thin film solar panels can be quite challenging. For example, in some instances multiple solar cells are fabricated individually and then assembled into panels. Depending on the size of each individual solar cell, this process can prove to be inefficient, extremely costly and time-consuming. There is a tremendous cost benefit in fabricating panels end-to-end. There is a need for a low cost method of thin film solar panel fabrication with high precision and high yield. A typical thin film solar panel has dimensions of 60×120 cm2.
Therefore, improved techniques for scaling-up the electrodeposition process for fabricating thin film solar panels would be desirable.